Affiliate marketing and email marketing are a powerful combination. However, many email marketing services have strict policies against affiliate promotions.
Affiliate marketing is a significant part of the digital media landscape, generating over 15% of all digital media revenue. Successful affiliate marketers can earn substantial commissions by promoting third-party brands through various channels, including blogs, YouTube, and social media.
Email marketing is ideal for sending affiliate offers directly to loyal subscribers. But caution is necessary because promotional emails are often flagged as spam, leading many email service providers (ESPs) to restrict or ban affiliate marketing activities to protect their sender reputation.
Choosing an affiliate-friendly ESP is crucial to avoid account suspension or cancellation. We’ve scrutinized the policies and legal documents of over 20 popular ESPs to help you find the best options for affiliate marketing.
In this article, we present the six best email marketing platforms for affiliate marketers and what they offer.
Overview: The Best Email Marketing Software for Affiliate Marketers
We examined the terms and conditions of leading email marketing platforms. Here are the nine best options for affiliate marketers and what they’re best at:
- GetResponse: Advanced marketing automation features that give affiliate campaigns more impact.
- EmailOctopus: Great value if you have a large subscriber list.
- SendX: Easy-to-use email marketing platform for great value.
- Moosend: Flexible automation options that help simplify complex affiliate funnels.
- Brevo: Great free plan for promoting your affiliate marketing business without extra cost.
- AWeber: Simple email marketing software to send newsletters and build basic automations.
1. GetResponse
GetResponse welcomes affiliate marketers with open arms, providing extensive resources and positive support for affiliate marketing. It scored 8.5 out of 10 in our full review. Features include customizable templates, a drag-and-drop email editor, list segmentation, and campaign analytics. Notably, GetResponse’s marketing automation and funnel features are among the best available.
Key Tools for Affiliate Marketing:
- Time-optimized email campaigns
- Contact scoring
- RSS feed for product reviews
- Personalization with merge tags and dynamic content
- In-depth click analysis
Pricing:
- Free plan available (limited to 500 contacts)
- Paid plans start at $15/month for up to 1,000 contacts
- Plus Plan (recommended for affiliate marketing) starts at $49/month for up to 1,000 contacts
- Discounts available for annual and biennial payments
Get started with GetResponse for free here
2. EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus welcomes affiliate marketers but reviews your account to ensure compliance. It offers a basic email marketing service with a drag-and-drop email builder, 30 templates, simple automations, and basic analytics.
Pricing:
- Generous free plan for up to 2,500 contacts and 10,000 emails/month
- Paid plans start at €20/month for up to 5,000 contacts
3. SendX
SendX explicitly welcomes affiliate marketers and promises not to ban accounts for affiliate marketing. It offers basic email marketing features, including unlimited emails on all plans, a drag-and-drop email builder, 50+ templates, stock images, signup forms, landing pages, drip campaigns, behavior-based automation, segmentation, and basic analytics.
Pricing:
- Business Plan starts at $9.99/month for up to 1,000 contacts
- 14-day free trial available
4. Moosend
Moosend hints at allowing affiliate marketing through supportive content. It offers a drag-and-drop editor, email templates, sign-up forms, landing pages, list segmentation, and analytics. Moosend excels in email marketing automation with a visual workflow builder and AI-powered product recommendation tool.
Pricing:
- Starts at $9/month for up to 500 emails
- 30-day free trial available
5. Brevo
Brevo doesn’t explicitly mention affiliate marketing but offers significant value, particularly with its free plan. It includes unlimited contacts, a drag-and-drop email editor, templates, sign-up forms, segmentation, CRM tools, and basic automations.
Pricing:
- Free plan available with 300 email sends/day
- Paid plans start at $25/month
7. AWeber
AWeber integrates with several affiliate program platforms but isn’t clear about policies for pure affiliate marketers. It’s suitable for beginners and small businesses, offering an easy-to-use platform with over 600 email templates, a user-friendly editor, and a robust landing page builder.
Pricing:
- Free plan for up to 500 contacts and 3,000 emails/month
- Paid plans start at $14.99/month for up to 500 contacts
Get started with AWeber for free
Affiliate Marketing vs. Affiliate Links
Email marketing services make a distinction between affiliate marketing and affiliate links. What’s the difference? It’s a subtle one but important to understand.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a way of making money by promoting third-party brands. Affiliate marketers join the affiliate programs or networks of established companies. They then use their presence on the web to promote affiliate products and services. In return, they get paid a commission.
For some businesses, promoting third-party brands is their entire business. They don’t have their ‘own’ brand, products, or services to market. They make money exclusively from the commissions they get for promoting other brands. Other businesses use affiliate marketing as a source of extra income. They promote third-party products and services in their email campaigns alongside their own.
What are Affiliate Links?
So here’s the key thing to understand. Most affiliate marketing relies on affiliate links. Affiliate links contain tracking. With this tracking, the company running the affiliate program sees which affiliate brought a certain customer. And they pay commissions accordingly.
But posting an affiliate link doesn’t make you an affiliate marketer. Not as far as some email marketing software companies are concerned.
It’s easiest to explain this with examples. Say you run a photography business. You write about the equipment you use on various shoots all the time in your blog. Why not include affiliate links for your favourite products? It’s a win-win. Your favourite brands get a helpful plug. And you can earn some money if any of your followers buy on your recommendation.
Or say you run an artisan food company that sends out regular recipe newsletters. Every recipe needs a list of ingredients. Why not name the brands you use? And include affiliate links so your readers can cook just like you do?
The point in these examples is that the affiliate links complement the main business. The main goal isn’t to promote affiliate products or brands.
So to recap. Some email marketing software sees affiliate marketing and using affiliate links as different. It’s a grey area. It comes down to what your main business goal is. If you have your own business or blog, you can use affiliate links in your content. As long as your main goal is marketing your own business, you can promote others, too.
How to Choose the Best Email Marketing Software for Affiliate Marketing
So what’s the best email marketing software for your affiliate marketing business? To make that decision, you have to understand the differences between platforms. Knowing where they stand on affiliate marketing is essential.
My advice is to do your research. The above guide gives you a solid place to start from. When deciding on the right option for you, here are some things to think about.
- Terms and conditions: Make sure the service allows the kind of affiliate marketing you want to do. For example, convertkit lets businesses and digital creatives promote third parties as a side hustle. But it doesn’t allow users to run affiliate campaigns.
- Lead generation: Big lists make a difference in affiliate marketing. The more people you reach, the more chance you have of earning a commission. So what are the lead generation tools like? How many form options are there? How flexible are they? Do they look good? Are they easy to embed on your pages? Ask similar questions about landing pages. Brevo, for example, loses points for not offering landing pages until you reach the Premium plan.
- List management: With big lists, segmentation and list hygiene become even more important. Flexible segmentation tools help you target the right offers to the right people. Good list hygiene makes sure you aren’t wasting time sending emails to contacts who never open them. Or worse, have asked not to receive them. Automated list hygiene tools save you a lot of time and effort.
- Automation: Promoting an affiliate business via email can be a lot of work. You have to keep a lot of different plates spinning. Different affiliate programs, different offers, lots of subscribers. Automation is your friend. An affiliate-friendly email automation software is flexible, scalable, and easy to use. Look for options that let you create behaviour-based conditions and triggers. This means you respond to what your subscribers do.
- Value for money: Make sure the cost of email marketing software makes sense to your business. You might like the sound of more advanced automation and list management features. But can you afford them? Is your business in a position to make the best use of them? If you’re just starting out, you might not need them yet. Check on what things will cost as your business grows. Many email marketing platforms charge by the size of your contact list.
Email Marketing Software to Avoid for Affiliate Marketing
As I’ve said already, affiliate marketing is a bit of a grey area for email marketing software. What different services do and do not allow isn’t always clear. That’s not great if you do want to grow your affiliate business. The last thing you want is to have a campaign blocked after you’ve done all the work setting it up.
Mailchimp, MailerLite, and Constant Contact all allow affiliate links but prohibit affiliate marketing. MailerLite says recommending products and services to your subscribers is ok. But if your main goal is to earn a commission, that’s not allowed.
Constant Contact prohibits content “…for the primary purpose of affiliate marketing”. Mailchimp talks about affiliate marketers “generating business for someone else”.
If your main source of income comes from affiliate promotions, avoid these services.
Best Email Marketing Software for Affiliate Marketing Wrap Up
Ready to choose the right email marketing software for your business? This guide spells out all the main things you need to know and introduces the main candidates. All have something to offer. It’s up to you to decide what’s most important to you.
My recommendation? For me, there’s a clear winner. The best email marketing solution for affiliate marketing is GetResponse. It welcomes affiliate businesses openly. It offers clear advice and support. There are no restrictions on the kind of affiliate promotions allowed. And it has a great set of advanced features perfect for helping an affiliate business grow.
Md Basheer is a dedicated email marketer with a deep understanding of how to build and nurture profitable email campaigns. With years of hands-on experience, he specializes in creating strategies that convert subscribers into loyal customers. From crafting compelling email content to designing automated workflows, Md Basheer knows how to leverage email marketing to drive business growth. His expertise extends to various email marketing tools and platforms, enabling him to optimize every aspect of a campaign—from segmentation and personalization to deliverability and analytics. Based in Abuja, Md Basheer combines technical knowledge with a keen sense of audience engagement, ensuring that each email not only reaches the inbox but also resonates with the reader. Whether it’s boosting open rates or increasing ROI, Md Basheer is passionate about helping businesses unlock the full potential of email marketing.
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